But muzicks almost always brings us through, if we give it a chance! Me, anways. :)

I’m sure this is already here somewhere, but it’s so close to my heart that I’m posting it again. I love it, and remember being unable to afford to buy it back in the 70s when I was a sprog at skool and singles cost 50p but I only got 10p a week pocket money, so I just had to run through it in my mind as I was jogging to the train station to get home. And now I can just look it up on YouTube and listen to it any time I like! And it still brings such a huge smile to my face :)

Here’s another one from the same time. I was in love with the physics teacher, Mr Goley, though, and so actually saved up my 10p’s in order to be able to buy this for him. I wrapped it up lovingly and secreted it in the physics and chemistry lab for him. My friend Moira Finn helped by keeping watch. Thank you, Moira :) Since I’m now in my 50s (*faints*) he must now be absolutely ANCIENT!!!! But I can still see him walking jauntily along the bottom corridor, and remember him bathed in a cloud of lovely Aramis :)

This got to Number 1, but for some reason they didn’t play it at the end of Top of the Pops. Never quite got to the bottom of that! Must have been something political going on, as Number 1 was always played at the end of the show. Since I didn’t have my own copy, having given it away, I was outraged, and wrote to the BBC to complain. They didn’t reply. Hmmm…

And here’s the later version from Babe. Couldn’t believe it when I switched on the DVD (ok, so prolly it was a video) and one of my fave tuneZ of all time came on! Turned out to be the Best FiLm Evah! Maaaaa…. xxx

Old pals might remember that in 2010 I stupidly allowed my peewiglet.com domain name to expire. It was snapped up by a US internet company keen to sell it back to me for some ridiculously inflated price. I registered a similar domain name instead, but didn’t ever get round to re-uploading the page.

Anyway, a few days ago I checked to see whether peewiglet.com had finally become available again, and it had, so I’ve put my page back up. I’m sure lots of links will need fixing, but all my old backpacking write-ups should now be working again. I’ve started having fun re-reading them.

Quite a lot of years ago now I listened to this as an audiobook as I walked Piglet on the beach. I was immediately drawn in: what a fantastic book, I felt! Probably my favourite amongst hundreds of books that I’ve listened to on MP3, even though Science Fiction is not my usual thing.

When I heard that it was coming out as a film I was hugely excited, and I’ve been waiting for it for many months. Now that I’ve seen the adaptation, though, I’m hugely disappointed. The actors playing the children were all too old (defeating the object of the book (if you’ve read/listened to it, you’ll know what I mean)), and it seemed as though somebody had been through the book with a pencil ticking off things that they felt should be incorporated into the film and filming them as a matter of conscience.

There was no heart in it, though, and I actually gave up and went to bed half way through the film. I tried again with the rest of it the next morning, but it was all so dull and boring and lacking in spirit that I simply turned it off: I’ve no idea how the film ended, and I really don’t care.

What a shame! I know that it was never going to be easy to turn Ender’s Game into a wonderful film, but now I’m sorry that they even tried. Thank goodness that I still have the book itself to return to.

Sorry to say, but if you’ve not seen it yet, and you loved the book, then I’d suggest that you don’t bother :(

Have just had my debit card declined twice in the local shop. Pretty embarrassing!

Came home and tried to access online banking, but it’s down.

Went to Natwest home page to see if there was a problem, but there was no suggestion that there’s anything up.

Then Googled and found hundreds of people complaining of exactly the same problem. In a way it was a relief–was wondering whether I’d accidentally overspent my small stash of pennies, or whether somebody had nicked them–but how very unimpressive that Natwest haven’t posted any kind of reassurance or explanation or even… apology.

I have to get petrol in the morning in order to get to work. I hope my card is working by then…